


If Only

by boxparade



Series: Until The Night Is Dawn [2]
Category: Amazing Spider-Man (2012), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe Major Character Death, Does that even count?, Even if Steve Rogers is kind of a dick, I promise he'll redeem himself eventually, I promise it's okay, I'm not sorry, Kid Fic, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Oops, Superfamily, They're all still alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-09
Updated: 2012-07-09
Packaged: 2017-11-09 12:11:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxparade/pseuds/boxparade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re not my father.”</i>
</p><p>This is a drabble from a much larger AU I'm working on. Basically, a bunch of kids appear in Avengers tower one day, and it turns out they're the kids of the Avengers from another, apocalyptic universe, and this universe's Avengers are suddenly sort-of kind-of parents and it's all very, very complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Only

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Children of Lantean Design](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/9755) by Xela. 



> BEFORE YOU FREAK OUT: The premise for this story is originally Xela's. *Pokes "inspired by" note above* It's a wonderful, wonderful SGA fic that I think you should all read, even if you don't read SGA fic normally.
> 
> I basically just adapted it to the Avengers universe, because I got bored, but seriously, so much credit goes to the original author of that story. I don't want to step on anyone's toes. I'm just over-ambitious.
> 
> **Basically, the thing with Steve is, he's freaking out because there are children, and they're his and Tony's, and he's being kind of a dick about it and avoiding everyone and Not Dealing With It. Because it's about damn time Tony gets to be the responsible one in a story.

“You don’t call me dad,” Tony says abruptly. It’s late—or, late by most people’s standards but…well, okay, late by his standards, too. He’s still in the lab, in sweat pants and a wife-beater, both of them covered in grease and oil from this thing he’s trying to build. It’s a thing. He doesn’t know what it does yet. He’s pretty sure it’ll be awesome anyway.

Peter is standing toward the side of the lab, leaning against a table, and he’s been watching Tony work for the better part of half an hour. He doesn’t seem tired, or impatient, or like he needs anything. He’s just sitting there, watching him, and Tony would feel a little bad about waiting so long to speak to him, but to his credit, he’d only noticed the kid’s presence about five minutes ago, and three of those minutes he’d had a screwdriver in his mouth and _couldn’t_ talk.

The question hangs in the air with dead weight, and he sees Peter shift—not uncomfortable, just in recognition. Tony has been surprised by just how well-adjusted he is, and figures it’s got something to do with just how quickly he was forced to grow up. He probably skipped right over the better half of the angst-ridden teenage years, right into ‘reasonable adult’ which is quite a feat. Tony would know, because even he hasn’t managed to reach that kind of maturity yet, and he’s had a damn while longer to do it.

“No,” Peter says, licking his lips and looking away, and so Tony goes back to casually poking at the Thing, and tries to make this feel less like an interrogation. He doesn’t want to scare the kid. He’s just…curious.

Then again, it’s not really a good question. Even Kennedy only calls him ‘Dad’ sometimes, and only recently. Though he thinks that has something to do with the fact that he no longer flips a shit when it happens.

But some of the other kids have taken to calling the Avengers ‘mom’ or ‘dad’ or ‘papa’ or, in Bruce’s case, ‘pai’ which is Insert-Language-Here for ‘dad’. Hell, the twins have never called Bruce or Clint anything other than ‘dad’, and even though Pepper still has a panic-attack every time Claire accidentally lets ‘mom’ slip out, she’s handled it a damn sight better than Loki. The first time he met Nari and Nari called him ‘daddy’, he’d gone out and released a bunch of giant, Asgardian dogs to rampage through Manhattan, destroying everything in their path and killing a few people in the process, even if they’d just been looking for marshmallows. (Fucking Asgard, man.)

Tony shrugs, because he doesn’t want to push Peter to explain if he doesn’t want to, but he still wants to leave the avenue open. _Look at you,_ Tony thinks, _being all emotionally available and fatherly._ He carefully pushes aside his worries of whether or not he’s being a good father to Kennedy, because it’s a bit presumptuous to assume he’s in a place to act as her father at all, and because he’s at least trying. (Which is a hell of a lot more than he can say about Cap.)

Peter crosses his arms loosely over his middle, and stares off at the side of the lab with a distant sort of expression on his face. Tony keeps watching him surreptitiously, trying to act just distracted enough by his work that maybe Peter won’t mind if a little emotion slips through. _He’s just like me,_ Tony thinks, and then shuts it down.

“It’s—” Peter stops, snapping his mouth shut and waiting for a long time, to the point that Tony wonders if he’s even going to start again at all. But eventually, he does, just slower. More careful. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re not my father.”

He seems a bit surprised that Tony doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look shocked or hurt, doesn’t really react at all. He just gives a short nod that he knows Peter sees, and keeps on tweaking at the chunk of machinery in front of him. Peter is frowning at him when he looks up to check and make sure his brain hasn’t started leaking out of his ears or something, and Tony sighs and puts down his tools. He isn’t going to bother hiding behind it anymore.

“I’m not upset,” Tony says calmly. “I get it.”

Peter nods along slowly, accepting Tony’s words, and then darts his eyes away again. It’s another long moment before he speaks, but Tony doesn’t go back to his project, just sits patiently and waits for Peter to say things in his own time.

“I get that, genetically, you’re the same person, just younger” he says, and Tony feels a brief rush of pride because Peter is a scientist in his own right, and he knows what he’s talking about, even if that doesn’t matter right now. “But it isn’t just genetics that determine parentage.”

Tony nods once, because of course it isn’t; kids are adopted all the time, and their adoptive parents have just as much—if not, in some cases, more—claim to the kid as the biological parents do. Peter was adopted. He knows that much, even though he’s still trying to figure out how it is that he—or the Tony Stark from Peter’s universe—managed to design some sort of machine that resulted in Claire. And the twins. And Kennedy.

“My parents…” Peter trails off, then redirects. “You weren’t the one that decided to adopt me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that you guys,” he glances at the door leading to the stairs, meaning the rest of the Avengers, “have accepted the role where necessary. Some of the younger kids really needed that, and it’s a good thing for everyone, but…”

He hesitates, biting at his lower lip, and darts a quick glance at Tony before continuing. His arms curl a little tighter around himself. “You weren’t there. You didn’t read me bedtime stories, you didn’t put bandaids on scraped knees, you weren’t the one that let me stay up two hours past my bedtime to watch the season finale of Doctor Who.” His lips twist up a little, like a smile only sadder, and he lets his shoulders drop about an inch and relax. “You weren’t there for all the fights, the really bad ones, when you guys would go out and get hurt and I’d be so fucking angry—” he stops, shaking his head and looking like he’s surprised at the memory.

Tony wants to tell him it’s okay to stop, but he thinks he might just need to say this; to get it out there.

“You missed my first kiss, even though a part of me wishes my parents had missed that, too,” he blushes, but it’s kind of bashful. “You missed the week I spent freaking out about my sexuality before I realized that, duh, of course things would be fine.”

Tony blinks, because he must’ve missed the memo that Peter is not-straight, but again, it’s not like he’s going to freak out. He gets the feeling Steve might, though, if he ever catches wind of it, even though he hasn’t said so much as a word about Bruce and Clint. For once, he wishes this universe’s Steve were a little more like the one from Peter’s universe.

“You don’t remember my first words, or that last conversation before things went bad,” his voice cracks on the last word and he swallows, hard. His eyes get a little glassy, but he powers through it. “There’s sixteen years of memories that you just don’t have, and for all that you look and talk and act like my father, I can’t make you remember things that never happened to you. I wish that I could.” That’s when he blinks and the tears finally start streaming down his cheeks, and Tony feels his heart clench. He would give anything to be that person right now, to be the father that Peter so desperately wants, but he know that he can’t. It’s not his place, and trying to make it so would only hurt the both of them.

“I’m sorry,” Tony says quietly, both because he can’t be Peter’s father and because he can’t bring Peter’s father back.

“Fuck,” Peter says, roughly, swiping at his eyes. Tony gets the feeling that, perhaps, this is the first time Peter’s broken down like this. The first time since it happened that he’s really let it hit him. Let himself grieve.

It’s fucking heartbreaking.

“Fuck,” Peter says again, brokenly. “I miss them.” He’s sobbing, still wiping at his eyes like it’ll make it stop, and he looks a little unsteady on his feet. Tony wavers for a moment over what to do, because he’s not sure where the boundaries are—never is, with Peter—but he can’t help it, so he gets up and goes to him. Peter stiffens when Tony’s arms pull him away from the edge of the table, toward him, and Tony is just about to pull away and apologize, but then Peter loosens.

The fight drops right out of him, and he wraps his arms tight around Tony and holds on, crying until there’s a puddle forming on Tony’s shoulder. Tony just makes ridiculous _shh_ noises that probably don’t help, and rubs a hand up and down his back. He’s not stupid—he knows this doesn’t change the fact that Peter’s parents are dead, and that he’s never going to call Tony ‘dad’. He wouldn’t want him to. That place is already very firmly accounted for, and it always will be, even if it’s a universe away.

But he can be here, now, and he can hold Peter until he stops crying. As much as he likes to think of himself as an adult, he’s still only sixteen. Tony can never be ‘dad’ to him, but maybe he can still be parental. A guardian, of sorts. A foster parent, at least for the few years of childhood he still has left. Even if all he does is make casual conversation, and offer support like a friend would, it’s more than he’d have otherwise.

It’s more than Steve would ever think to offer.

Peter calms some, but holds onto him a bit longer, and Tony doesn’t let go until he pulls away. Peter backs up, saying “I—thanks,” and he looks up to meet Tony’s eyes. It’s there, clear as day—the second where it clicks that Tony really isn’t his father, hitting him all over again like a tidal wave, and it’s shattering. Tony hates it—hates seeing someone so young have to try to face that, hates that he can’t do anything about it, hates this whole damn situation in the first place. None of these kids need ghosts of their dead parents wandering around while they’re trying to grieve.

But then, he doesn’t really know if it’d be any better if they didn’t have the Avengers here. If they’d wound up in a universe without the Avengers, shoved into the system and given entirely new people with new faces to take care of them. It doesn’t sound like it’d be much better, but then Tony doesn’t have a fucking clue. Not when it comes to this.

But the shy smile Peter offers him just then tells him that yeah, it’s probably better that they’re here, even if it isn’t the same as having their real parents. It’ll never be the same, even for the ones too young to remember right now. Still, it’s something, and Tony’s just going to have to hope that it’s enough.

“Thanks, Tony,” Peter whispers, and then slips away like a shadow in the night, leaving behind a small shard of himself that Tony gathers, holds close to his chest, and cherishes like a father would.

_If only._

**Author's Note:**

> I can't say whether or not I'll ever finish the main fic, but I'm about 10,000 words in. I figured I would post this because it seems to do sort of well on its own, so that it's out there and it doesn't rot away on my computer like the billion other half-finished stories I have.
> 
> Feedback is greatly appreciated. I'd love ideas to incorporate into the main fic, if you've got 'em.


End file.
